Morning Light
by SassenachStarbuck
Summary: After a night out at the club, Hermione reflects on her actions that led her back home so early in the morning, wearing last night's dress.


**Title: Morning Light**

 **Team: Ballycastle Bats**

 **Position: Beater 1**

 **A/N: This is for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 3. Prompt: 90s Nostalgia! Welcome to the 90s!**

 **Beater 1 Prompt: Hey Now (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) — Cyndi Lauper**

 **Additional Prompts: 7. (color) powder grey 11. (object) jumper/sweater 15. (object) glitter**

 **Disclaimer: J.K. owns us all.**

 **Word Count: 1104**

 **Beta: My wonderful teammates The Ballycastle Bats!**

The vanity mirror that she had received from her mother for her fourteenth birthday, it had been passed down from mother to daughter for a few generations. It was oval with an ornate wood carving design surrounding the mirror, a Hollywood esque chair came with it, and it was draped in luxurious white satin. It was something that she had always loved sitting in front of, she would be getting ready to go out, it made her feel refined, regal, and sophisticated. Right now, however, it was towering and intimidating, an iridescent reminder of what she wasn't. And as it loomed over her, it mocked her. She had come home once again in the morning light. She wondered if there was such a thing as the 'walk of shame' in the Wizarding world. Coming home in the morning light, was coming home in the morning light whether you were wizard, witch, or Muggle.

Her flat was bare, scarce furniture and fixtures, and the silence within it reflected the empty walls. Her head was pounding the music from the club still rang in her ears every time she closed her eyes. Her chest flushed, with a bittersweet feeling as flashes of those powder grey eyes, those steel greys that had followed her across the dance floor. His arms holding her close as they swayed to the pulse of the club. He had not left her alone, not from the moment he had first laid eyes on her at the bar. He had come up behind her whisper in her ear, asking her if she would like to dance. She remembered the longing for forgiveness that he held in those decadent grey eyes.

She opened her eyes and saw the same powder grey dusted across her upper arms and chest. The body glitter shimmering the morning rays, her body reminded her of a night her mind would rather forget, the sunlight making the air around her sparkle. Her mind tried to swim through the murky powder grey recesses, something that she is all too familiar with. She closed her eyes again; she remembered how he had tasted of firewhiskey. Firewhiskey and sunshine. She remembered when those grey orbs looked deep into her own chocolate brown eyes, his mouth had would turn up in the slightest, crooked, but genuine smile. Laughing gently as he twirled her around himself, and then pulling her back into his embrace, closer than before. Her eyes opened again and her body shivered. Trying to push the thoughts away, she pulled her jumper up properly from where it had fallen off one shoulder and stayed there from the night before.

At first, she had tried to rationalise her more recent decisions, trying to make turn them into something logical. She wanted them to be justified; she wanted everyone to understand, they had been in a bloody war, and that she just wanted to have fun. Shouldn't they have fun, they were still teenagers? Afterall, girls just want to have fun', especially if they have spent the better part of a year living in a tent. At least, that is what she told herself the first three or four times, she had initially gone out to the club with Harry and Ginny. She knew deep down that it wasn't true no matter how many times she told herself that it was. But now she went alone. Sometimes she came home alone, and sometimes she didn't. One thing was for sure, she no longer went with friends, who would certainly check on her, no more parents to stay up late and worry about her. Echoes of their questions hanging heavy on her heartstrings. What was she going to do with her life? When was she going to start living her life right? She was only having fun, that was until those smokey, powder greys had caught her in their sights. She knew that some men wanted a woman that they could hide away from the world, but she wasn't like that. She wasn't like that at all. Deep down, she knew that he wasn't like that either. She feared that if she let him, he would worship her until his final days. His actions had shown her that much already.

She got up from the vanity and decided to take a shower. Glitter shook from her jumper with every step she took, making the floor of her flat look like a disco ball had shattered into millions of little shiny particles. Tossing her jumper on the still made bed from last night, she finally made her way into the bathroom. The water was tepid, no matter how long it ran, the temperature never as hot as she would like Too tired to risk a wandless _Accio_ from inside the restroom, she let the water beat at the back of her neck, and she hung her head, letting last night's decisions wash down the drain with the rest of the body glitter. A sparkly cyclone of regret swirled round and round. Her voluminous curls weighed heavy with the water, and it took two washings to remove all the glitter and smell from the club.

It took all of her effort to shut off the water, it relaxed the dull ache from her pounding headache, the kind she could never cured with a potion. She felt that she deserved every ounce of uncomfortable pain, after all, she had put her body through it.

After wrapping a towel around herself, she went to lay on the bed, but before she could lay down, she heard an owl pecking at the window. She crossed over to open it, and a regal looking owl, a grey eagle owl to be precise, dropped a letter into her hand, and then he immediately turned and flew back out soaring in the sunlight, the wind closing it behind him. She flipped the letter over in hand, no seal, she grabbed her wand from the inside pocket of her jumper, the one she had laid at the foot of her bed. She took her time opening it, double checking for dark curses, hexes, and jinxes. The habit not yet broken.

 _Last night was a second chance I never deserved,_

 _let me show you it wasn't for naught._

 _Dinner? Tonight? I'll see you at 7._

 _-D_

Was she really ready for him? It had been so long since she had given her heart over to someone who felt just as deeply as herself. She just wanted to go out and enjoy her life while she was still young. Afterall, girls just want to have fun.

 **A/N: Prompt was to be inspired by the song, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. This is my interpretation of Hermione's feelings the summer after the war.**


End file.
